|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 30
"Annexed to this general memoir there were some notes, also by the
Emperor, one of them being that description of the sufferings of the
Torgouths on their march, and of the miserable condition in which they
arrived at the Chinese frontier, which De Quincey has quoted at p.
417. Annexed to the Memoir there is also a letter from P. Amiot, one
of the French Jesuit missionaries, dated 'Pe-king, 15th October,
1773,' containing a comment on the memoir of a certain Chinese scholar
and mandarin, Yu-min-tchoung, who had been charged by the Emperor with
the task of seeing the narrative properly preserved in four languages
in a monumental form. It is from this Chinese comment on the Imperial
Memoir that there is the extract at p. 418 as to the miserable
condition of the fugitives.
"On a comparison of De Quincey's splendid paper with the Chinese
documents, several discrepancies present themselves; the most
important of which perhaps are these:--(1) In De Quincey's paper it is
Kien Long himself who first descries the approach of the vast Kalmuck
horde to the frontiers of his dominions. On a fine morning in the
early autumn of 1771, we are told, being then on a hunting expedition
in the solitary Tartar wilds on the outside of the great Chinese Wall,
and standing by chance at an opening of his pavilion to enjoy the
morning sunshine, he sees the huge sheet of mist on the horizon,
which, as it rolls nearer and nearer, and its features become more
definite, reveals camels, and horses, and human beings in myriads, and
announces the advent of, etc. etc.! In Kien Long's own narrative he is
not there at all, having expected indeed the arrival of the Kalmuck
host, but having deputed the military and commissariat arrangements
for the reception of them to his trusted officer, Chouh�d�; and his
first sight of any of them is when their chiefs are brought to him, by
the imperial post-road, to his quarters a good way off, where they are
honorably entertained, and whence they accompany him to his summer
residence of G�-hol. (2) De Quincey's closing account of the monument
in memory of the Tartar transmigration which Kien Long caused to be
erected, and his copy of the fine inscription on the monument, are not
in accord with the Chinese statements respecting that matter. 'Mighty
columns of granite and brass erected by the Emperor Kien Long near the
banks of the Ily' is De Quincey's description of the monument. The
account given of the affair by the mandarin Yu-min-tchoung, in his
comment on the Emperor's Memoir, is very different. 'The year of the
arrival of the Torgouths,' he says, 'chanced to be precisely that in
which the Emperor was celebrating the eightieth year of the age of his
mother the Empress-Dowager. In memory of this happy day his Majesty
had built on the mountain which shelters from the heat (Pi-chou-chan)
a vast and magnificent _miao_, in honor of the reunion of all the
followers of Fo in one and the same worship; it had just been
completed when Oubach� and the other princes of his nation arrived at
G�-hol. In memory of an event which has contributed to make this same
year forever famous in our annals, it has been his Majesty's will to
erect in the same _miao_ a monument which should fix the epoch of the
event and attest its authenticity; he himself composed the words for
the monument and wrote the characters with his own hand. How small
the number of persons that will have an opportunity of seeing and
reading this monument within the walls of the temple in which it is
erected!' Moreover the words of the monumental inscription in De
Quincey's copy of it are hardly what Kien Long would have written or
could have authorized. 'Wandering sheep who have strayed away from the
Celestial Empire in the year 1616' is the expression in De Quincey's
copy for that original secession of the Torgouth Tartars from their
eastern home on the Chinese borders for transference of themselves far
west to Russia, which was repaired and compensated by their return in
1771 under their Khan Oubach�. As distinctly, on the other hand, the
memoir of Kien Long refers the date of the original secession to no
farther back than the reign of his own grandfather, the Emperor Kang
Hi, when Ayouki, the grandfather of Oubach�, was Khan of the
Torgouths, and induced them to part company with their overbearing
kinsmen the Eleuths, and seek refuge within the Russian territories on
the Volga. In the comment of the Chinese mandarin on the Imperial
Memoir the time is more exactly indicated by the statement that the
Torgouths had remained 'more than seventy years' in their Russian
settlements when Oubach� brought them back. This would refer us to
about 1700, or, at farthest, to between 1690 and 1700, for the
secession under Ayouki.
"The discrepancies are partly explained by the fact that De Quincey
followed Bergmann's account,--which account differs avowedly in some
particulars from that of the Chinese memoirs. In Bergmann I find the
original secession of the ancestors of Oubach�'s Kalmuck horde from
China to Russia _is_ pushed back to 1616, just as in De Quincey. But,
though De Quincey keeps by Bergmann when he pleases, he takes
liberties with Bergmann too, intensifies Bergmann's story throughout,
and adds much to it for which there is little or no suggestion in
Bergmann. For example, the incident which De Quincey introduces with
such terrific effect as the closing catastrophe of the march of the
fugitive Kalmucks before their arrival on the Chinese frontier,--the
incident of their thirst-maddened rush into the waters of Lake Tengis,
and their wallow there in bloody struggle with their Bashkir
pursuers,--has no basis in Bergmann larger than a few slight and
rather matter-of-fact sentences. As Bergmann himself refers here and
there in his narrative to previous books, German or Russian, for his
authorities, it is just possible that De Quincey may have called some
of these to his aid for any intensification or expansion of Bergmann
he thought necessary. My impression, however, is that he did nothing
of the sort, but deputed any necessary increment of his Bergmann
materials to his own lively imagination."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|